The Third Daughter
by Wings4
Summary: an alternative telling of cinderella, told from the youngest stepsister's POV. please just read past the first paragraph. the whole story isn't written like that. i'll post the rest if people like!
1. ch 1

A/N- this is just the first chapter. Almost the entire thing is written, but I don't want to post it all until somebody is reading it. So review and tell me if you like!  
  
The Third Daughter  
  
A Stepsister's Tale  
  
"Once upon a time, in a land far away, there lived a beautiful young girl who loved to be kind and courteous to everyone she met. She was a friend to all of the animals, from Belinda the spider to Bruno, a friendly red fox. She loved to embroider and stitch, and all the merchants in the marketplace liked to have her at their stalls, while the customers greeted her with friendly smiles. But sadly, she was forced to work all day for her evil Mother and Sisters. They were very jealous of her astounding beauty, and forced her to do the dirtiest jobs. And she did not know what to do at all. But, then one day she was invited to a magical ball, where the prince would be choosing a wife! The girl was so thrilled, and-"  
  
"Honestly Libby, you have no talent whatsoever. I don't know why you even bother. That story is nothing but a sugar frosted doughnut with white fluff in the middle." She laughed derisively, and turned back to the mirror in my room, which she insisted on using, combing her hair and gazing at her reflection, making sure every strand of shining copper hair was in place. My eldest sister was apparently feeling especially good willed toward me this evening. Honestly, Libby, you have no talent whatsoever. The words stung, and I forced my face into its normal smooth calm, determined not to let her know that she could hurt me so easily. You have to admit, though, I thought to myself, that she has a gift for perfectly describing what I wrote.  
  
I looked over my writing and realized it was just fluff. If anyone were ever that perfect, I and the rest of the world would hate her vehemently. I scratched it out, cut a new piece of charcoal and parchment, and started anew. Once upon a time, there was a beautiful girl who loved to draw and paint pictures of the ocean, the animals, and everything in life. She would sell these at the marketplace when she could, and always managed to pick a few pockets when she didn't get enough for money for bread that evening. I wasn't There; I wasn't at a mental state where I could write well.  
  
I would have continued, but our maid, Melida, called, with her sweet voice, "Girls, dinner's ready." I stood, fixing my green skirts, and walked down the stairs, holding them up from the ground, careful not to dirty them. The stairs were twisty and wrap around, narrow and built of stone. My slippers slid across the cool, ancient rock as I stepped into the kitchen, where the back staircase led. Melida, her gray hair pulled back into a tight bun, a few wisps escaping and hanging in her face as she stood over the cooking table, smiled at me. Her eyes were an alarming shade of green, and they watered with the onions she had just cooked.  
  
"Libby, get to supper. Amana just set it on the table. You'll be late." Her voice was musical and young, not the tone of a wizened old lady past her sixtieth year. As I walked by, she whispered, "Don't eat the salad; I put something special in it for your sisters." She winked and I smiled as I continued, glad to have Melida's confidence.  
  
I was the only one who was ever in the kitchen, so I was also the only one that Melida ever warned about the food. The tip-offs were sort of a reward for caring about her, as most nobles thought it beneath them to set foot in a kitchen. She would put laxatives in the pork, or put boil potions in the lettuce, just to give my sisters some troubles. God knows they don't have many, so a few extra minutes at the chamber pots or a couple of painful blemishes would not kill them.  
  
I walked into the dining hall and sat at my place on mother's left, where I always did. My oldest sister, Auria, with the auburn hair and laughing brown eyes, sat at her right, while Ellida, more commonly known as Elli, the pale haired, beautiful, and good stepdaughter sat next to Auria. I smiled at my mother, who smiled back. For my mother though, a smile was a slight upturn of the lips and a light in her dark eyes. I believe she loved me, but felt awkward showing it. I was the youngest after all, and would be lucky to marry some minor lord, who would not pay much of a dowry for me; why should she pay much attention?  
  
Elli smirked pleasantly, and asked, "So how has your. writing been going, Libby?" I knew she was only trying to bring attention to the fact that my mother had spent a lot of money on developing a talent that so far was obviously not there. My mother, I knew, was embarrassed at the fact that all the other nobles had called her crazy for paying for more schooling for me, a third daughter, and that as of yet the schooling had come up absolutely fruitless. Even so, she cared about my happiness enough to follow my whim and still pay for instruction from the priests to help me learn more words and enlarge my vocabulary, and learn how grammatical sentences were structured. Auria and Elli were also taught to read and write; but they didn't have any sort of passion for it. My sisters didn't understand why I would rather be around a bunch of smelly, half bald, celibant old men than at the King's court flirting with the Royal Courtiers. And often I didn't either. Sometimes I felt as if the entire idea of writing was tiresome and hard, especially when I had not let anyone see what good things I wrote. The few poems and short stories I wrote that I believed had some merit were much too precious to share with anyone. I was afraid that whomever I showed would beat it into the ground, and criticize and assess it until it was nothing more than silly words on parchment.  
  
Other than my writing and reading, I liked to sew and embroider, and sit quietly during the day, and I helped in the dishes and dirty work when my mother asked. I also liked dancing at the palace balls and playing the flute. I did not talk much, especially since my father died, and when I did it was only to select people, who I could trust with my words. I remember my father explaining to me how powerful words could be, and how things could be conveyed through words that pictures and gestures could barely hope to show. Mostly I hid in my room, or went to the stables to be with Wren, who didn't force me to talk back to him and had no problem with long silences in the middle of conversations.  
  
I grunted, a grunt that could mean, "Just fine, Elli. Thank you for asking," or "Elli, please shut up before I blow up and hit you very hard in the face."  
  
Then, with a prim look on her face, Auria came down the stairs, immaculate as always, in her emerald colored "Dinner Gown" that laced up the front with white ribbons. (We were not wealthy enough for her to have a dinner gown, but she still insisted upon wearing her best dresses for dinner every night.)  
  
My mother looked at her disapprovingly and said, "Auria, you know that I do not want you to soil your best skirts just for supper," she pursed her red mocha lips, annoyance sitting pleasantly on her olive skin. "You may need them someday." She said the last sentence a bit cryptically, but I was the only one to detect it.  
  
We invited all the servants in, Melida, Amana, and Heloise, our washerwoman, and Yuri, our field laborer, Wren, our stable boy/field hand, and Edward, the gardener/general conversationalist to say Grace with us. I blushed as Wren winked at me, his sepia, tousled hair a mess, and his shining blue eyes creating a striking contrast on his dirt-crusted face. He had rushed so quickly to Grace that he didn't even wash himself. Elli, who noticed everything, grinned knowingly when she saw me blushing.  
  
It had become common knowledge around the manner and most of the marketplace that Wren was in love with me and that I reciprocated those feelings and that maybe we had acted on those feelings, once or twice, in a very conservative manner. Of course, no one really knew that when I said I had go use the toilet, it was very likely that Wren was behind the out house, and that we would run into the clearings of the forest for some time alone, or that often my silent conversations with him in the stables grew to other things. I dreamt of a life involving Wren, myself, and a troupe of traveling performers that was looking for a girl who could do aerobic tricks and twist her legs behind her ears and a young man who could juggle chickens. (I was sure Wren could learn, even though whenever I brought up the subject he kissed me to make me shut up.) And, as I usually sat sewing with my sisters and my mother, I often had time for such idle daydreams.  
  
My mother eyed me after we finished Grace when Wren walked by, brushing his hand so close to my head it almost touched it, but she did not say anything. We ate in silence, Elli neatly, as she did everything.  
  
Elli was attractive, but in a different way from Auria. Auria was offensively beautiful; it took you a moment to get used to her perfect features, and even then it was as hard to gaze at her as it was the sun. Elli, though, was subtlety pretty, with her flaxen hair that fell softly down her back in a long braid, and her large brown eyes that peered innocently at you from under long dark lashes. When she smiled, it made you think of an angel, fallen to earth and wondering when she could return to the Heavens. She was good and kind to everyone, and even birds would alight on her finger. I had suspicions that they dressed her in the morning.  
  
Once you got to know her, she could make even your own family hate you. Elli was very smart, and she was cunning and persuasive; an often dangerous mixture. She was not blood related; Elli was just the product of an occupied father and a sick mother, the latter dying a few days after she was born, the former a few years ago, shortly after he married my mother, leaving her a widow with lots of money and a big house. Elli did have her good points though. A drive and determination to win, no matter what the cost, and the ability to turn situations around to her advantage were qualities that had helped our family out before, when we needed it most. But still, she worked her hardest, especially when she was bored, to make my life miserable.  
  
I was not completely blameless myself, though. Often I had joined Auria when she would mock Elli until she would cry, calling her a lowly orphan and telling lies about her parents, and taunting her with Auria's favorite tease, "Cinder Elli" because of one unfortunate incident where Elli, trying to impress a young, rustic traveler staying at the house, had begun to start a fire with nothing but two sticks, and the ashes had flown in her face, dirtying her dress but injuring nothing but her pride. Elli was also always doing the most disgusting chores, because often she would let go of her calm and cool around mother and mother would force all the work on her as punishment.  
  
We ate in silence, except for the almost non existent tink of forks on plates and knives scraping on food, and the soft patter of one setting one's drink down on the linen covered table.  
  
It was not really polite for us girls, especially me, to initiate a conversation during our evening meal. I was the youngest and the least of all the children; it was not my place to initiate anything. I was bursting with ideas and things to say, even so. I wanted to ask my mother what she thought of the recent, not-talked-about-but-known-of-by-everyone power struggle waged between the Duke of Winver and King Matthias. I wanted to know if she thought the Prince actually was running around the countryside, getting in drunken brawls and fathering bastards, as rumors had been circling in the market. I wondered if my mother was intentionally not telling the other girls not to eat the salad, because I was sure Melida must have told my mother too, about the things she put in the dinner. But even as I wondered these things I knew that mother did not care about politics, would not be bothered with something as trivial as the scandals of a Prince who would not be King for many years, and that she would never, ever confide in me about anything. certainly not the way my father had. He had talked politics and gossip and read me poetry and stories. He asked my opinion and considered it in decisions about the manor where we once had lived. Father had realized that I needed someone who loved me, that I needed a friend in a world where people can be so alone. We had done everything together, but then he got the sickness, the one that eats you from the inside, and weakens your muscles and rots your organs. The memories of him, watching him die slowly and get weaker made my eyes tear up, so I looked into my soup and stirred it around the tears warming my face until I thought it would melt and slip into my soup.  
  
Clap, clap, clap. Someone was at the door. 


	2. ch 2

A/N - Second Chapter!  
  
Melida bustled past us to the door, cleaning herself up, pulling stray silver hairs behind her ears and wiping flour off her hands as she walked. She was a spry old woman, who still moved about as quickly as any lady of younger years. We could hear her open our big oak door. I could see Auria leaning back in her chair, almost to the point of tipping to see who it was, while Elli continued eating her soup, trying to seem unconcerned, but her eyes were turned discreetly toward the hall. Wren, who had just been eating his supper in the kitchen, stepped into the doorway and leaned against it, still slurping a bowl of soup, also watched Melida, trying to see what was going on. He was a handsome young man, ruggedly so, of seventeen or eighteen, with a little bit of brown stubble on his cheeks, and dark, coffee colored hair cropped not so neatly next to his head. He had wide shoulders and a strong lean body that was obviously built for manual labor. He winked at me again, and I was glad that everyone else was too busy wondering about the knock at the door to notice.  
  
Visitors were a novelty at our manner. It was located on a lonely road that few traveled if they were smart, so most of our visitors were either lost or sorely ill in the head. I could hear the voice, and it was a man's, deep and rich. Melida stepped into our dining hall, a nervous look on her face.  
  
"Mistress, you better talk to him." Then she whispered, knowing that I could hear every word, but that the other two would not be able to understand a thing. I was used to listening and not talking. "I let him into the house. He's wearing a green cloak; looks like a bandit's. Won't say his name; I'm sending Yuri with you. Be careful." With a knowing little smirk at Auria and Elli, and a quick wink at me, she went back into the kitchen, pushing Wren along in front of her, who had since begun to gaze on me instead of the hall. I blushed again; he was always making me embarrassed.  
  
My mother stood up, in her simple but expensive fabrics, and walked to the front hall, Yuri behind her, a big middle aged man who served as our main defense against intruders. We could hear her voice, but not make out words from my mother's soft and firm tone. His voice, louder but still undecipherable, answered with an undertone of cold and wet in his voice. My mother responded, and we heard their footsteps move towards our dining hall, padding in my mother's case, clomping in the stranger's.  
  
As he stepped into the room, I noticed how he shielded his face from our view, as if afraid that he might burn from the light. Auria, especially was entranced with him, and smiled at him for the longest time with a dreamy look in her eyes. He had a dangerous atmosphere about him, and I believed I could see a glint of golden eyes beneath the shroud. He must be a bandit, or Thief King. I thought romantically, immediately wishing that he would carry me off to be the Queen of the Forest with him. A man once said that if adults left noble marriages to girls, good-looking thieves and handsome stable boys would rule the earth. At the moment, I was not entirely sure that would be a bad thing.  
  
Amana, a tiny girl with brown hair and enormous brown eyes, came out from the shadows and began to help him pull off his cloak. At first he hesitated, then thought better of it, reluctantly letting her take his mantle from him.  
  
He was beautiful. Tall and striking, with white blonde hair down to his shoulders, and golden eyes with bright flecks that scanned the three of us searchingly. Auria grinned, Elli smiled sweetly, and I merely looked on, studying his movements, his expressions, noting where his eyes flickered and where they hung. He looked at me, and I did not look coyly away, as my two sisters had done. They had reason; he could easily lust after them, and though they both would find it flattering, it would not be seemly to stare back. I, on the other hand, was not half as comely as they, and definitely not an object of his desire, so I could hold his gaze for as long as I wanted. He was the first to look away.  
  
Heloise walked in with another plate, not even pretending not to stare. He sat, and mother attempted to engage him in polite conversation.  
  
"What is your name, sir?"  
  
"I am. Alfred." He was hesitant, not sure of himself. Strange, not to be sure of your own name.  
  
"Alfred." My mother said, tasting the word and deciding it was good, if not especially interesting. "These are my daughters, Auria, the eldest," she inclined her head towards my auburn haired sister, who blushed prettily at his stare. "Ellida is my step daughter," she pointed at Elli, who stared shyly at Alfred from underneath long lashes. "And Elizabeth," I merely nodded my head with a tiny smile, letting him know that I could tell he was lying. He smiled at me, amused at my surety. It made me angry.  
  
"And what may I call you, fair hostess?" Alfred grinned up at mother. He was charming, actually. Disgusting.  
  
"I am Duchess Cornelia Velasquez." My mother was from a country across the sea, and she was still attractive, even though wrinkles and a harsh upturn to her mouth had hardened her face after enduring the difficulties of life. She was tall for a woman, and bore the classic looks of her home country, with dark hair, olive skin, and mysterious, brown black eyes.  
  
"Is your husband away?" Alfred asked, and I almost gasped at the rudeness of the question. He barely knew us. How dare he ask such a personal question?  
  
If my mother was as scandalized as I was, she didn't show it. "He died three years ago."  
  
"I'm so sorry," Alfred murmured. The conversation halted. Once again, we all ate in silence.  
  
Then mother said, setting down her fork with determination, "I don't mean to intrude, but why are you out on such a lonely road alone, traveling in the dead of night?" She was always straightforward, and I suppose after his display of social skill, she had a right to ask a deliberately prying question.  
  
He had some trouble answering that one, and made many "hm, well, ah." noises before even beginning to say something intelligible. Finally, he came up with an answer. By that point I was leaning off my seat, staring at him, held poised by the suspense of the moment. My sisters sat in similar stances. Shows how desperately bored we all are. "I am just a traveler, visiting my father." I slumped back into my seat, and began stirring my soup again. How terribly dull, I thought.  
  
Mother finished her meal, and she told us girls to go to bed. Auria slid her hand across the back of Alfred's chair as she walked towards the stairs. He watched her lift her skirts and begin to climb them. My mother scowled.  
  
Elli and I followed, and we each went to our respective rooms. I lit a fire in the fireplace, not wanting to bother Amana to do it for me, got a book, and sat down in my bed, underneath my canopy, and read long into the night, hearing the voices downstairs, the tones changing from formal language to nervous laughter to silence, a joking voice, Wren's, then real, true laughter from all the servants and Mother and the stranger. He always knew how to lighten the mood. I smiled. The talk, I could tell, became more light hearted as the night went on, partially from Yuri's good wine, I was sure, and I began to become quite upset with my mother for sending me to bed so early. But I knew it was so Auria would have no time to get to know the stranger.  
  
Soon I fell asleep, thrown into nightmares about the day my father died, the way he looked up at me and told me to make a nice quiet life for myself, where I could read and write to my heart's content, and then he said, "I love you," slipping slowly into the land of the dead. He had lived for a few more days, but it was not life; it was merely living death, where the body still works as the soul flies away. Then I dreamed of how I had screamed and raged and carried on, angry at him, angry at God, angry at everyone and everything, and I suppose I was acting such things out in my sleep, because I woke up in a tangle of sheets and bedcovers on the floor, sweating like a pig, with the stranger bent down, trying to calm me.  
  
Alfred, in just his night clothes, was staring down at me, nervous and almost frightened. Embarrassed, I tried to stand up, only to fall immediately back down, right into his arms. I blushed, and he carried me back up to my bed. Then he just sat on the edge, staring at me for quite some time. I could not see his eyes, but I could imagine what he was thinking. I blushed further shades of embarrassment, trying to hide myself under my raven dark hair.  
  
I am not very pretty, with unfashionably dark hair and jade green eyes with turquoise and gold mixed into them, so bright they make a striking contrast with my hair, a rather pointed nose, and a jaw line too strong to be considered feminine. So usually men stare at my sisters. I get nothing more than a passing glance, sometimes a stare, but that usually is directed at my ink stained hands, or my charcoal marked skirts. And I had nothing wrong with that. Let Auria get raped by some peasant in the marketplace, if she was going to be so overconfident; it was none of my business. And Elli could marry some handsome young man just as empty as herself; it would mean nothing to me. And anyway, Wren loved me, and I loved him, so what was there in other men?  
  
But as Alfred gazed on me, I thought, Maybe I should follow him on the road. The silence stretched between us. I shifted my body underneath the covers he had placed over me, feeling awkward. Say something! I thought at him, hoping by some mental bond he might hear me. But instead, he leaned down, his hair falling into my face, and kissed me, lightly. NO! I should've screamed, but I was caught up in the moment, the romance of it all. I could tell he knew what he was doing; I was not his first kiss. Then he leaned back, and I could tell he was smiling through the dark. He came in close, as if he was going to kiss me again. My breath quickened, and I realized I wanted him to do more than kiss me again, even if it would change everything, even if I were so scared I thought I might start screaming. He whispered in my ear something almost unintelligible, that sounded suspiciously like, "Come away with me." Then he stood up and left, walking out my door to the guestrooms.  
  
I didn't know what to think. A part of me was angry, squealing, "How dare he just walk into my house and turn everything around and mess up the way things were!" Another part was alive, tingling with the excitement. "Come away with me"?  
  
I knew I wouldn't be able to get anymore sleep, so I picked up my book and lit a candle, and tried to read. It was too hard to concentrate. I threw the book on the floor and picked up my inkwell and feather pen, then walked down the stairs to our Dining hall. I sat in front of the fire, and began to write. I wrote until all my feelings and doubts were on the paper, and then I just sat, my knees hugged to my chest, and stared into the fire, analyzing every possible aspect. Fire always seemed to clear things up; it was so wild and raging, but held in a very controlled environment, kind of like my thoughts, I realized. He could've thought I was one of my sisters; it was dark in the room, and I guessed a large amount of alcohol had been consumed during the night. Or suppose he actually was in love with me. What about Wren and mother and Melida, and all the people I loved? Was this my only chance for an adventure? I knew what I must do, for I could not stay in this manor any longer, and I couldn't let my mother arrange a marriage to some elderly baron who was not Wren or Alfred, who would probably beat me and leave me a young widow. I had to get away. 


End file.
